Is ethical porn a fantasy or the future of adult entertainment?

Have you ever stopped to think about where your porn comes from, or if porn actors receive fair pay? These aren’t generally pressing questions for the average porn consumer as they scroll through their search results for a 5-minute clip. But as with all parts of consumer culture, it’s important for us to think about how we can support higher and more ethical production standards.

Euphemia Russell is a pleasure and sexuality educator in Melbourne who regularly holds adult education events. A few weeks ago, I attended one of her events, a screening of select, tasteful and diverse adult erotica.
Not only did we explore different styles of adult film, we also explored the labour of production and the technical side that we’re not always so privy to. With Euphemia’s approachable facilitation style, the event created a safe public space to talk about pleasure and sexuality.
These are the topics explored in the latest episode of All We Cannot Say, a one-hour long unpacking the state of the Australian adult entertainment industry, and how we can help to support artistic integrity and fairer production standards.

In this episode, we also discuss:

The state of Australian sex education

The cultural, political and institutional barriers to running a sex education business

The state of the porn industry

Does ethical porn exist?

Why sex work is work

The politics of Porn Hub and its heteronormative cis-gendered bias

One cup, two girls

What really goes on inside the porn industry?

Do we need more realistic porn? Is there a place for fantasy in our intimate lives?

Porn screenings and safe spaces for understanding public and private perceptions of porn